


Sea Fever

by redbells



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbells/pseuds/redbells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by." Jack, Elizabeth, Tia Dalma, and others; one hundred word drabbles from prompts on the LJ community blackpearlsails. Updated sporadically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not A Star To See By

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm.
> 
> Prompt: Idea

So many lives, sacrifices to a beast that hungered for but one man. 

Something like misery hummed through her bones as she stood, branded by candlelight and guilt.

_No. I made the right choice._

And then the curve of Gibbs's neck, bowed in grief and remembrance, and all her confidence swept away.

_I’m not sorry._  His voice, proud.  _Pirate._

Tia Dalma, the rustle of skirts, a hunger in her eyes.

That bayou lilt, slow and creeping, heavy with strange magic. “What would you do – what would any of you do – to bring back witty Jack, and ‘im precious  _Pearl?”_

_Hope._


	2. Wayward, Not Yet Astray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where you have roamed, I will follow.
> 
> Prompt: Bread

She is King of the Pirates, and she keeps track of her own. More accurately, perhaps, she looks for Jack.  
  
_Made port in Tortuga for three days. Offloaded a cargo of spices and stolen rum. Kept most of the rum. Bound for Cartagena._  
  
She loses track of him in Trinidad, before he resurfaces in Morocco, returning from the Orient.  
  
_Dark India ink, ingredients for chai tea; cardamom, clove, and pepper. Silk and opium from Singapore._  
  
Elizabeth does not know his next horizon, or if he still means her to follow.  
  
She sails at dawn, headed for open water, and Jack.


	3. Your Name A Prayer Upon My Lips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calling out my name, looking for a fight.
> 
> Prompt: Competition

The  _Pearl_  is shrouded in darkness, blacker than her own sails, folded about her like wings as she sits in port at Shipwreck Cove, waiting out the storm. Her decks are slick with rain, and with the lamps doused Elizabeth has only her memory to guide her.  
  
“Well this is familiar.” Jack stands before the mast, his smile a knife’s edge in the dark, glinting gold. “So, my King, have you come to condemn me once more?”  
  
“Jack…”  
  
No. She’s paid that debt.  
  
They wake in the morning, tangled in each other, and cannot remember which of them surrendered first.


	4. Calling My Children Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mother, Mother Ocean, I have heard you call.
> 
> Prompt: Pants

The dress pools around her ankles, soft and luminous like molten gold. It whispers against her skin, seductive, as she steps away. She slips away from the gold, a mermaid in reverse, headed for the sea.  
  
Perhaps not so strange, in the end. She has crossed from life into death, sailed beyond the edge of the far horizon. She has known goddesses and monsters, the feel of freedom and the weight of chains.  
  
The sea is jealous of her children, and she is calling Elizabeth home.  
  
The dress lies abandoned. As she walks toward the  _Pearl,_  her strides are free. 


	5. Worlds More Full of Weeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To the waters and the wild.
> 
> Prompt: Blessing

Jack stands before her, wrapped in sorrow as the wind sings through the rigging, a sound like weeping. Wary, he flinches back when she reaches out to him. This is not the man who saved her from drowning, the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow.  
  
This is not the man she killed.  
  
His lips shape her name, reverent, a condemnation or a prayer, she isn’t sure.  
  
“Elizabeth.”  
  
He reaches out, and flinches again when his hand meets the curve of her cheek.  
  
Perhaps he thought her a ghost, come to haunt him.  
  
They stand close, breath coming harsh, a sound like weeping.


	6. Sea Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The waves know nothing of mercy.
> 
> Prompt: Dive

She falls like a fledgling bird, wings not ready to bear her in flight. The water’s deep embrace steals the breath from her body as she sinks, a drowning glory, wreathed in gold.

A graceful downward arc, he follows. Cool water slides against his skin as he swims in the strange half-light beneath the waves.

The ocean guards her treasures fiercely, but he steals her from the sea, a woman-child, pale skin and smooth curves. He cradles her to his chest, and wills her to live.

Too late, he learns the cost of saving her, the price of his theft.


	7. I Am Weary, Let Me Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They call out his name, their cries thin and haunting.
> 
> Prompt: Early

Midnight, she thinks, gazing out the windows of the Pearl’s great cabin. She cannot see the stars, but she knows the hour. A time for ghosts.

Elizabeth sits vigil at his bedside, counting the hours, listening as old remembrances wring soft sounds of pain from Jack’s lips.

He has more ghosts than she can ever hope to know, though she counts herself among them. They haunt him under cover of night’s darkness, in sleep where he has no escape.

She waits, wills morning to come on swifter wings.

She waits in vain.

Dawn, and its reprieve, do not come premature.


	8. Borne Upon the Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tides know their way home. 
> 
> Vaguely connected to [Cast Your Heart to the Tides](http://archiveofourown.org/works/199195)
> 
> Prompt: Thanks

She was wild, once. Before they bound her in her bones, chained her in her skin. Condemned, a slow crawl toward eternity as she longed for the sea.  
  
Then, a shiver of smoke and a soft voice, she was released. Great and terrible in her fury, she sent the storm, a tribute to her captors.  
  
Her rage has cooled now, soothed away by the ocean’s deep embrace.  
  
Them that freed her, she rewards.  
  
The girl, and Jack.  
  
She laughs, waves curled with white foam, and sends another storm.  
  
 _Cast your heart to the tides, for they will carry it home._


End file.
